Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Spoil 1.59

Then just as I was being released in late 1996 Mother won a small product liability settlement and used the money to promptly go get cosmetic surgery on the crow's feet around her eyes. However the cosmetic surgeon botched it and did something to the musculature of her face which caused her to look insanely frightened at all times.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

chambers

"Earthquake victims usually last no more than seven days. Children dobetter thanks to their size and because their bodies are better at'shutting down' and conserving energy.Last Friday rescuers saved an 18-month-old girl. She was found in theruins of her home in the town of Balimang, in the North West FrontierProvince [of Pakistan]."

chambers

The Colossi of Memnon (known to locals as el-Colossat, or es-Salamat) are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. For the past 3400 years they have stood in the Theban necropolis, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor.

The Greek historian and geographer Strabo, writing in the early years of the 1st century AD, tells of an earthquake (in 27 BC) that shattered the northern colossus, collapsing it from the waist up. Following its rupture, this statue was then reputed to "sing" every morning at dawn: a light moaning or whistling, probably caused by rising temperatures and the evaporation of dew inside the porous rock. The legend of the "Vocal Memnon", the luck that hearing it was reputed to bring, and the reputation of the statue's oracular powers, travelled the length of the known world, and a constant stream of visitors, including several Roman Emperors, came to marvel at the statues. The mysterious vocalisations of the broken colossus ceased in 199 AD, however, when Emperor Septimius Severus, in an attempt to curry favour with the oracle, reassembled the two shattered halves.

chambers

Roquefort was created in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, in the Massif Central region of France. The entrance to these caves is shaded by high cliffs. A series of long fissures through the rocks enable the caves to breathe in cool fresh air and exhale the old. This circulation of air ensures the temperature inside remains at 6-7C, while rainwater slowly seeping through the rocks from above provides humidity.A shepherd and his maid interrupted their lunch of fresh ewe's milk cheese for making love.Some days later, content, reckless and hungry, they tried the aboandoned cheese, now mouldy, and found it tasted delicious.

Spoil 1.58

Spoil 1.57 La femme aux bottes rouges

Friday, October 21, 2005

From behind 1.74

My dear dada,your first adventure is very amusing. That you took a deaf man for blind is capital. I wonder the "ears of the deaf" were not unstopped at your arrival. I can quite understand your having felt shy at being left alone with a deaf man, who was blind.Eleanor to Karl Marx, 19 March 1866

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

From behind 1.73 dead man

This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth [...]

'Tonight we're reminded of evil emperor Nero Augustus. He was a scourge to all the Christians.''What's a scourge?''It's like, when something real bad happens, where everybody gets killed and you can't do anything about, like a swarm of locusts."'For the entertainment of his guest, Nero would illuminate his whole garden with bodies of live Christians covered in burning oil, strung up on flaming crosses, crucified...at dinner, he'd have the Christians rubbed by his guards in aromatic herbs and garlic and sown up into sacks, and then he threw these sacks to the wild dogs.''That's terrible.''It's horrible.''Terrible is what it is.'

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Boil 1.71

Agency MROPs whom Terry'd worked with for years had trouble recalling his name, and always greeted him with an exaggerated bonhomie designed to obscure this fact. Ricin and botulinus were about equally easy to cultivate. Actually, they were both quite easy indeed, assuming you were comfortable in a laboratory environment and exercised due care in your procedures. Schmidt himself had personally overheard some of the other young men in Technical Processing refer to Darlene Lilley as Lurch or Herman and make fun of her height and physical solidity, and had been outraged enough to have come very very close indeed to confronting them directly.[...]In some of the fantasies in which he and Darlene Lilley were having high-impact intercourse on the firm's conference tables Schmidt kept finding himself saying Thank you, oh thank you in rhythm to the undulatory thrusting motions of the coitus, and was unable to stop himself, and couldn't help seeing the confused and then distasteful expression that the rhythmic Oh God, thank you produced on Darlene Lilley's face even as her glasses fogged and her crosstrainers' heel drummed thunderously on the table's surface, and sometimes it almost wrecked the whole fantasy.D.F. Wallace, Oblivion, 49-54

Saturday, October 15, 2005

File 1.36 Comments

Friday, October 14, 2005

hyssyttely

When Thomas brought the news that the house I was born in no longer existed, neither the lane nor the path sloping to the river, nothing, I had a dream of return. Multicolored. Joyous. I was able to fly, and the trees were even taller than in childhood, because they had been growing all the years since they had been cut down. (Tilda Swinton)

ARLANC 1.48

chambers

'Bravo, Oliveira said, understanding that applause would have been out of place. 'Bravo, madame.'Without standing up Berthe Trépart turned a little on the stool and put her elbow on middle C. They looked at each other. Oliveira got up and went to the edge of the stage.'Very interesting,' he said. 'Really, madame, I listened to your concert with real interest.'What a bastard.Berthe Trépart looked at the empty hall. One of her eyelids was trembling a little. She seemes to be asking herself something, waiting for something. Oliveira sensed that he should keep on talking.'An artist like you must be aware of the lack of understanding and the snobbery of the public. Deep down I know that you were playing for yourself.''For myself," Berthe Trépart repeated in a macaw voice strikingly similar to that of the gentleman who had introduced her.'For whom, then? Oliveira asked, climbing onto the stage with the ease of a dreamer. 'An artist can only count on the stars, as Nietzsche said.''Who are you?' Berthe Trépart was startled.'Oh, someone who is interested in manifestations...' He could have run words together the way he always did. All he could say was that he was here, looking for a little companionship without really knowing why.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

From behind 1.72

File 1.35

"my dreams wander the withered fields"

[...] and asked [Buson] to take the official title of the school's master. He was reluctant to do it, and was quite contemptuous of the role: "These days, those who dominate the haikai world peddle their different styles, ridicule and slander everyone else, and puff themselves up with the title of master. They flaunt their wealth, parade their ignorance, and promote themselves by arranging their students' innumerable wretched verses in anthologies.

Boil 1.70

Monday, October 10, 2005

From behind 1.71

For about the past fortnight now I have written absolutely nothing, for when I am not at the library I am hunted like a dog and therefore, despite the best of intentions, I am constantly interrupted in my work…at home disruptions and disturbances are too much for me. Everything is constantly in a state of siege and the streams of tears for nights on end try my nerves and drive me mad. Naturally I cannot do much. I feel sorry for my wife. She has the heaviest load to bear and au fond she is right. Industry ought to be more productive than marriage. Marx to Engels, July 31 1851

Saturday, October 08, 2005

ARLANC 1.47

Monday, October 03, 2005

Spoil 1.56

SADNESSES OF SEX AND ART: Sadness of arousal being an unordinary physical state; Sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things; Sadness of the anus; Sadness of eye contact during fellatio and cunniligus; Kissing sadness; Sadness of moving too quickly; Sadness of not mo[vi]ng; Nude model sadness; Sadness of portraiture; Sadness of Pinchas T's only notable paper "To the Dust: From Man You Came and to Man You Shall Return," in which he argued it would be possible, in theory, for life and art to be reversed...J.S. Foer, Everything is illuminated, 212.

ARLANC 1.46

Sunday, October 02, 2005

hyssyttely

"Everyone carries a room about inside them. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one's ears and listens, say at night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall." ( read by Tilda Swinton)

Saturday, October 01, 2005

ARLANC 1.45

Spoil 1.54

Brod's 613 SadnessesThe following encyclopedia of sadness was found on the body of Brod D. The original 613 sadnesses, written in her diary, corresponded to the 613 commandments of our Torah. Shown below is what was salvageable after Brod was recovered. (Her diary's wet pages printed the sadnesses onto her body. Only a small fraction [55] were legible. The other 558 sadnesses are lost forever, and it is hoped that, without knowing what they are, no one will have to experience them.)

SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God's love; Sadness of God's back [sic]; favourite child sadness; Sadness of b[ein]g said in front of one's God; Sadness of the opposite of belief [sic]; What if? sadness; Sadness of God alone in heaven; Sadness of a God who would need people to pray to him...

SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humour sadness; Sadness of love wt[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds; Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; [...]J. S. Foer, Everything is illuminated, 211-212.